Osage Nation Songwriter on His ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Oscar Nom: “Our Whole Tribe Was Going Crazy”

This year’s Academy Award nominees for best original song include previous winners — Billie Eilish/Finneas, Jon Batiste, Mark Ronson/Andrew Wyatt — and a songwriter with a record-making 15th nomination, honorary Oscar recipient Diane Warren. 

The fifth nominee? An Osage Nation tribal member who works as a housing director accommodating low-income Native Americans and is also a skilled musician who has spent 40 years performing Osage ceremonial dances. 

Scott George scored a nom for composing “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People),” a beautiful, drum-filled, six-minute-plus song from Apple’s Killers of the Flower Moon. George holds the title of “head singer” in his tribe and was brought on as a music consultant for Killers, which follows the systematic assassinations of the Osage people in the 1920s by white settlers to take control of the oil on their land.

When “Marty,” as George calls Martin Scorsese, attended one of George’s tribe’s ceremonial dances and heard their traditional music, the director knew he wanted something similar for one of the closing scenes of the film, which earned 10 Oscar noms including best picture and best director.

“We kind of knew what he wanted, but because that’s our ceremonial [music], we didn’t know how we were going to deliver that. We don’t really allow cameras in there,” George explains. “We talked about it
and said, ‘We’ll just have to make our own song.’”

“Wahzhazhe” is performed by Osage Tribal Singers and includes vocals from George and two dozen female and male singers who gathered around the drum. For this interview, George sat in his office in Shawnee, Oklahoma, taking a break from his normal life at Citizen Potawatomi Nation, where he’s worked for 19 years.

“I’m hoping the phone doesn’t ring or something while I’m sitting here,” he jokes.

Are you surprised by the nomination? It’s been a very competitive year for film songs.

Not being involved in this before, we really didn’t understand the process. We barely got it submitted in time because it had to be put in a written form. We didn’t really understand what we were in for. When I’ve talked to other people and they said, “Well, there were over 200 songs in there, and the people judging this were the composers and musicians,” it really shed a different light. Because in the beginning, I thought, “Well, we’re tied to the movie and, kind of rough to say, but they’re just throwing us a bone.” Then when they said that, I said, “Wow, maybe there’s something to this.” So I’m like, “Wow, that’s just crazy.”

I’ve talked to all the guys and ladies that sing with us, and they can’t believe it, either. I think our whole tribe was all going crazy that day [the Oscar nominations were announced]. I had a call from one of my sisters who works in the tribe. She said, “We might as well just shut this place down. We can’t get nothing done.” 

Any talks about a live performance at the Oscars?

We’re getting hints that that might happen, but I think that may be more on Apple’s side. I don’t know that we’ve heard anything from the Academy’s production committee yet. We’re all kind of hoping for the chance. I think that it would be nice to be able to do that.

Your nomination is historic for your people, as well as Lily Gladstone’s best actress nod. What’s it like to know that you both are making history?

With Lily, it’s not surprising to me that she’s been nominated. She’s great. 

With us, if you really wanted to look at it, our music is probably thousands of years old. For it to be recognized maybe for the first time ever, it’s overwhelming in that sense. But I’m kind of hoping that people might listen to it a little more. You can download anything, and on YouTube you can access all that stuff. I’ve been singing for over 40 years. All my life, I’ve always tried to introduce people to it. [Those] that don’t have an ear for it, they’re like, “It just all sounds the same to me” — in reality, there’s a lot of intricate dips and changes in tone and everything else that we try to put in there. So if somebody were to give it a little time to get used to it, they might come to understand it a little bit better.

Composer Robbie Robertson passed away last year and earned a posthumous nomination for scoring the film. Did you get a chance to work with him?

Not one-on-one. No, we didn’t. I think he wasn’t feeling too good by the time we came in, but he did pick this song [from the two that were submitted]. We recorded both of those songs after we had practiced them for a while and sent them to Marty.

What was it like working with Martin Scorsese?

It was pretty neat. When we shot this song, it probably took all day — or felt like it did. We must’ve sang it a dozen times. We got to go up with him and sit with him and view it on the monitor. He introduced himself and thanked all of our people for being out there. He was really nice to work with. He knew what he wanted. 

Is this your first time composing a song for a film?

Yes, for a film, it is. I’ve composed other songs. Usually we compose music for veterans, people that have been honored in whatever way. There’s other reasons to compose, but this will be the first time I think anybody said, “Hey, let’s make one for a movie.” Our intention was … after the movie’s over, we could use it to honor our own people whenever something comes up. A lot of our people are asked to be the head man dancer or head lady dancer, and we kind of frown on them using their family song outside of our arbor because we’re afraid of people will copy it and take it somewhere else and do something. So this could be used for that purpose. So after the movie’s over with, we’ll probably attend a dance somewhere; it’s not really a ceremony, but it’s an action where we’re going to announce that we’re going to place this song on the drum, which means it’s public at that point, that anybody can sing it.

What do you think of the other songs that are nominated? 

Well, they’re beautiful songs to me, as far as the melodies and the instrumentation, pianos. Beautiful songs. I’m surprised in some sense that there’s not a real peppy song among them. The one that Diane Warren composed has a little more pep into it, but most of them are really beautiful, just beautiful songs.

So what’s next for you? Would you want to do more film stuff?

Well, it’s been fun. I think I told somebody the other day, “I’ll be glad to see the other side of all this,” kind of get back to who I am and what I do. I don’t know that there will be another opportunity as far as you’re talking about 500+ tribes in the United States, and we all have our own music. It would kind of have to be peculiar to our own people to do anything like this again. As many composers and singers out there as you saw sitting around that drum, there’s that many for every tribe at least.

I’m sure a lot of them also feel represented in this song and in this film as well…

I’m hoping so. I’ve heard back from some of the younger generation that I’m around. When they first heard it, that was their saying, “Why don’t you go put it on the drum, Uncle?” And I’m like, “Well, I don’t know.” I said, “Let’s get this over with first and then we can, and then you guys can sing it.” So they’ve been listening to it and ready to go. I get that feeling, and I’ve heard that already, that people are proud that we’re out there representing not just us, but all indigenous people.

Have you already thought about what you’re going to wear to the awards? I imagine you’re going to take your wife.

Oh, yeah. Yes. She’s been eating me up on that part of it. She’s been shopping and looking around and [saying], “What am I going to do?” and all this. She’s the one that stresses out about it. I said, “Well, I already know what I’m wearing.” She said, “Well, you can’t just wear that. You got to wear something else.” So we’ll figure it out.

This story first appeared in the Feb. 14 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.